Happydent Crowdsources Artworks For Its Fliptop Packs

A review of the crowdsourcing campaign by Happydent in partnership with Talenthouse India, where artists have been invited to create artwork for the Happydent Fliptop packs that will be made in to Limited edition Fliptop packs for the youth

Perfetti Van Melle owned chewing gum brand, Happydent White is inviting entries for a new fliptop pack design through Talenthouse India, the crowdsourcing platform for creative folks. The oral care gum that has always stood for white, sparkling teeth in all its communication spots, is now on the hunt for new out of the box designs that appeal to the youth.

The winning designs will be made into limited edition fliptop packs for the youth. In terms of material gratification, the grand prize winner will get an Imac and 3 runners up will receive an Ipad each. And, in case Happydent likes more designs, these will be gratified by a voucher worth Rs. 25,000!

The contest has been hosted on a neat little app on the Talenthouse India Facebook page. The app displays the time remaining for submissions right at the top, with an entry form below where one is asked to fill in their personal details like name, email, phone number and number of days required to finish the work. It isn’t clear why one has to fill these details though.

The ‘click here to participate’ button takes one to the contest link at the Talenthouse website, where all the details for submission are provided. The brief is clear – the design should be appealing,attitudinal, trendy, funky, colourful, clutter breaking and in line with the brand’s core positioning of ‘Sparkling smiles’. Happydent wants the youth to carry and show off the new pack.

A crowdsourcing campaign of this stature will definitely help Happydent in bringing in fresh designs for the pack as well as build visibility in the youth.

But can it be better?

There is always something that could be improved upon. Though I am a rooter of crowdsourced campaigns, I’d still prefer them to be executed differently in terms of the process of judgement and promoting the contest online.

Voting by fans will bring in the element of bias: The rules state that the entries will be judged initially through a voting process on the Happydent Facebook page and the Talenthouse Facebook page, though it isn’t clear how the process would work. The second level of judging would occur with a panel from the Perfetti Van Melle marketing team. Voting by fans will bring in the element of bias, which could have been easily avoided in a crowdsourced contest involving the youth. The voting feature serves as a great tool for spreading the word, but it should remain at that and not become a factor for poor quality work getting shortlisted!

No updates on the Happydent Facebook page: When I explored the Facebook page of Happydent, I was surprised to not find a single update about the fliptop pack artwork design contest at Talenthouse. One might think the contest does not exist! Since a pack design that connects with the youth needs to be promoted on a platform that connects with the youth as well, I was expecting to see some information about that on the wall, if not a dedicated Facebook app for the same.

The Happydent Facebook page is already quite popular for its cover pictures. Fans can submit pictures showcasing their dazzling smiles and hope to get featured as the ‘Cover photo of the day’ and get Happydent mugs with their picture printed on them. All is well and happy, but the 947K+ fans of Happydent are unaware of the contest, unless they are fans of Talenthouse too. One may argue that Talenthouse has the relevant community but by not including the Happydent Facebook community, the campaign loses out on bonding and engaging with them, which is what a campaign is basically meant to do.